The Power

Prompted by the voice in her head, Allie heads east after killing her foster father. After traveling alone for nearly three months, Allie arrives at the Sisters of Mercy convent in a remote area of coastal South Carolina. The nuns are not sure what to do with the disheveled, exhausted, and underfed runaway. Allie tells them her name is Eve and tries initially to fit in with the other girls at the convent orphanage. With growing alarm, the nuns watch news accounts of girls around the world and their strange new power. It is the work of the Devil, they conclude. Allie, however, disagrees. Maybe, she thinks, it is time for a new world. “Maybe that’s what the world needed. A bit of shaking up” (49).

Meanwhile back in London, in the weeks after her mother’s brutal killing, Roxy disciplines herself to control the electrical current that surges from her fingertips. She tests its range and its duration. Unlike her friends who are uncertain and uneasy, Roxy embraces the possibility of such power. When her father arranges a confrontation with the men he knows are responsible for killing Roxy’s mother, Roxy avenges her death by executing the thugs with shock after shock.